1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an adaptable shape image encoding apparatus and a decoding apparatus for effectively encoding or decoding an image having a special shape.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of conventional arts for cutting out a partial image having an arbitrary shape from an input image and encoding the partial image is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 11-266454.
This publication discloses an encoding apparatus for selecting an arbitrary region from a rectangular input image and encoding the position and the shape of the region or for making the quality of the image of the region better than that of the other region by adjusting various parameters. Further, the publication discloses to separate encoded data having been input, to decode the position and the shape of the above region from the separated encoded data as well as to decode encoded parameters, and to decode the image of the above arbitrary region using the decoded parameters.
The conventional art discloses the apparatus for cutting out the arbitrary region from the rectangular input image and encoding and decoding the image of the cut-out region so that the quality of the image is made better than that of the other region. However, when the input image has a special property by itself, for example, when the input image is recorded by an omnidirectional type camera, the conventional art does not take to improve an encoding efficiency and the like based on the special property into consideration at all. In other words, the conventional art is disadvantageous in that it cannot improve an encoding efficiency, image quality, resolution, and the like of an image having a special property.
Further, when a plurality of partial images, in particular, whose positions move are cut out from a base image, which is an image recorded by the omnidirectional type camera, and transmitted, each of the cut-out images is subjected to encoding processing, from which a problem arises in that a large processing load is imposed on the encoding as well as a long processing time is necessary.